Gov. Greg Abbott promised to “call for a new law that prohibits the state from imposing unfunded mandates” in an op-ed piece published Sunday in the Reporter-News.

“Tackling our property tax problems will require a joint effort between local governments and the state government,” Abbott wrote.

But actions, said Downing Bolls, Taylor County Judge, speak louder than words.

“Every state elected official I have come into contact with acknowledges unfunded mandates are a problem, but every effort to get an amendment before the voters and taxpayers of this state on unfunded mandates has failed to make it out of the legislature,” Bolls said. “I personally believe that is because the practice of sending the funding for some state programs down to local governments is the funding mechanism.”

The unfunded mandate law would be in addition to a planned 2.5 percent yearly cap on property tax revenue growth.

In cases where a school or local government wants to exceed the cap, a two-thirds supermajority approval by the voters and local elected officials of the taxing authority would be required.

While there’s universal hatred for unfunded mandates, Bolls said, what’s worse are under-funded mandates – those that get passed down to local government with only “minimal, fractional funding of the program.”

“That becomes an even larger concern when I read the governor’s editorial comments,” Bolls said. “All his editorial comments indicate to me is that we better pay attention to the fine print. … He didn’t say anything about ending the practice of partially funded mandates.”

Bolls said that anytime he sees phrases such as “joint effort” in a sentence that also contains the words “local government” and “state government,” then “it looks like that (partially-funded mandates) might be the direction we’re headed.”

Commissioner Chuck Statler would “welcome” the death of unfunded and partially-funded mandates.

“Counties could be in a situation where we weren’t having monetary restraints on our budget imposed upon us,” he said. “There are a lot of people now in local government feel like the state is trying to control local governments and take away our local decision- making."

One of the reasons tax rates have had to go up in recent years is the combination of unfunded and partially-funded mandates, he said.

But even with the death of those dreaded words, the county would still have to see how it lives under the umbrella of revenue caps, Statler said.